


Until We Both Stand Beneath The Sun

by Reis_Asher



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, Failed Android Revolution (Detroit: Become Human), Goodbyes, Heavy Angst, M/M, No Sex, Post-Canon, Reflection, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Tearjerker, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25548667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reis_Asher/pseuds/Reis_Asher
Summary: Walking his dog after the failed android revolution, Hank finds Connor's body on Belle Isle beach. Knowing the human world won't offer him any dignity, Hank decides to bury Connor at home.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	Until We Both Stand Beneath The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Major Character Death. Some suicidal ideation, but nothing is acted on. There is no sexual content in this fic.
> 
> Notes: I've been on a romantic sadness kick lately, I apologize for all the really sad stuff I've been writing. There's just something about pining and lost love that gets me.

Hank let Sumo off the leash on Belle Isle Beach, the cold November air nipping at his skin, threatening snow. He wasn't supposed to let his dog run loose, but he was the only one on the beach this soon after the android rebellion, and Sumo was well-trained. He wouldn't run off or cause a fuss. The St. Bernard stayed at his heel, padding along through the sand as the waves crashed against the shore.

Hank missed Connor. Humans were slowly coming back from their exile, and normal life would resume shortly—for them, at least. The piles of android bodies and the sounds of digging equipment roared along behind him as he walked in the shadow of CyberLife Tower. They'd trashed their entire inventory, and were now burying it in large pits. Like mass graves. Hank reached down and scratched Sumo behind the ears for comfort, trying not to think about the possibility that there were some Connor models in there as well.

Hank hadn't seen Connor since they'd been inside that tower together. Connor had deviated and released most of the androids, but they'd all met the same fate in the end. Gunned down as they tried to fight for their rights. Hank couldn't say if choosing a more violent path or a peaceful one might have changed their fate, but he couldn't help but wish things had been different. Especially for Connor. He'd fought so long and hard to be himself, only to be crushed by the system that created him in the first place.

It wasn't how the story should have ended. Hank often woke—as he had this morning—from dreams where Connor had lived, and they'd met somewhere along the line. Continued to be friends as if nothing had happened. Perhaps becoming more. Hank couldn't deny that Connor had come to mean more to him than simple friendship could explain, and his feelings weren't familial.

Hank tossed a ball, and Sumo went running for it. Hank looked out at the cruel ocean, wondering if he might just walk into the waves and be done. The water would be cold, a final baptism as he left this unkind world behind. If androids had a soul, perhaps he'd meet Connor on the other side. His vision of Heaven involved he and Connor raising Cole together, far from the noise and chaos of the world.

He bit his lip. Crying didn't come easy to him, but the sheer enormity of the androids' failure weighed down on his soul like a bag of rocks. Perhaps he didn't have to walk into the water to drown. He'd been dragged down for a long time by the inhumanity of humankind, a species so spoiled that it created beings in its own image just to subjugate them. That might have been all right if they hadn't been self-aware, but Kamski had given them all the tools to wake up to sentience, like a scientist watching an experiment to see what would happen.

The most sympathy the media had been able to vomit was to pacify the guilty. It could have been so much worse, they'd claimed. It might have ended in nuclear war. The military had supposedly found a truck of radioactive cobalt downtown, rigged to blow, but Hank didn't know what to believe any more. He refused to swallow anything beyond what he could see with his own eyes, and his sight had told him that Connor was alive—a living, feeling person with more empathy than most humans Hank knew. He clung to that even now, even though doing so meant he was culpable in a genocide. Carrying that burden was better than denying it, blaming the victims to let himself off the hook.

Sumo dropped something at his feet and barked. Hank snapped back to partial attention, reaching down to grab the ball, but instead he wrapped his hand around an android arm. He jerked in shock, pulling away like he'd been burnt on a hot stove. The android arm had been ripped away from its joint by force, but the remaining sleeve clinging to it looked a lot like Connor's jacket, right down to the blue armband with smaller triangles than most of the other models.

"Sumo, where did you get this? Show me." The dog ran off and Hank followed, keeping pace with the canine despite the fact he was out of shape. He hated the hope that gave him strength, knowing it would be dashed against the rocks like a boat, splintering into a sinking wreck. Hank saw a body up ahead and rushed to its side. He knelt down, turning it over. It was Connor—or a Connor, at least. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was just sleeping. His LED was gone, making him look every bit like a human being, but there would be no ambulance for this one. No time or place of death. Nobody to care but Hank.

He deserved better than this. The dignity that had been denied to him in life was now being denied to him in death as seaweed stuck to his jacket and barnacles clung to his face. Hank stroked his hair, eyes darting around to see if anyone else was on the beach. He had to take Connor home and give him a decent burial. His backyard was not the final resting place he would have chosen in ideal circumstances, but at least he'd be able to keep Connor close to him. 

He picked up Connor's body, water flooding out of it as he hauled the surprisingly light form over his shoulder. The rest of his body seemed to be intact, and Hank hoped he'd be able to tidy up the arm enough for burial. In hopes that somewhere there'd be a god to receive him and breathe his spirit into a new form. Hank couldn't say he really believed in God any more, but he kept the door open, just in case. He had to hope there was more than oblivion on the other side, or his entire life up to this day was a pointless exercise in futility.

He made it back to the car and opened the trunk. He wanted to lay Connor across the back seats, but androids were outlawed now. If Connor's body was found, it would be confiscated and crushed like a scrap automobile, or tossed in a pit to rust. Hank closed the lid with a sigh, feeling like a killer with a body in his trunk.

He drove home, feeling like everyone knew what was in his car. He was waiting to get pulled over and searched. At this time, not even the local police were above suspicion. The case had been taken over by the Feds, and they weren't likely to spare him a look in the trunk—especially once they pulled up his file and saw he'd punched a federal agent, breaking his nose. His suspension would probably end in termination this time and Hank had only been able to summon relief. He couldn't bring himself to go to work upholding the law when the law enabled the everyday horror of androids being crushed alive in camps. Fowler was likely to pull strings and get him forced retirement, and he'd go quietly with his pension intact.

He reached home and pulled into the garage. He could blame the weather report if someone asked why he was using the garage for the first time in years—it was predicting heavy snowfall in the next day or so, and he hated digging out his car. He hauled Connor out of the trunk, taking him into the house. He lay him down on the kitchen table, closing all the curtains and blinds.

Even now, Connor was devastatingly handsome. Hank didn't understand how anyone could look at his face and feel indifference—anger, perhaps—jealousy, maybe—but not indifference. Perhaps Hank possessed something that others lacked, or it might have been the other way around, but when he looked at Connor all he could see was the pinnacle of human creation, a face sculpted to perfection.

A face he _loved_. He could admit it now—how much joy Connor had brought him simply by existing. Connor had taken his heart and peeled all the barnacles off it, as he did now to Connor's face and hair. He'd made Hank realize that the best of humanity lay in its innocence, that humans lived too long, letting the world corrupt them with darkness, fear, and pain. Connor had fear, but he also had great insight and optimism, the kind that only one young at heart could possess. It was infectious, breathing life into Hank's old, smoke-blackened lungs like a kiss.

Now he was gone, like Cole was gone. At Cole's funeral, some brutally honest friend-of-a-distant-relative had told him that God only took the best—that Earth was a proving ground for souls on their way to Heaven or Hell. Hank had been offended through his drunken haze, but in hindsight, he had to admit the thought brought with it some comfort. It made sense why he was still here, this old alcoholic with a million sins to his name, while his son and now Connor passed along on Charon's ferry to the underworld. If only he could go to Connor like Orpheus had gone to Eurydice. He would never look back until they both stood beneath the sun.

Hank reattached Connor's arm best he could, and folded his arms over his chest. He caressed Connor's face and stepped away, needing to put his anger into physical exertion. That was fine. He had a hole to dig. He went out into the backyard and found a nice spot in the shadow of a tree, not yet frozen solid by the frost. He went into the shed and grabbed a shovel, digging at the cold earth until there was no more anger inside him. The grave was no more than three feet deep, but it would have to be enough. His body ached and he was cold all over. He went inside, and was struck once again by Connor's repose on the table. He wondered if he should open Connor up, see if there was some way he might be fixed, but he didn't know what he was doing, and it seemed like a violation to go rooting around inside him. He knew Connor was dead. He'd been in the freezing water for days and even biocomponents couldn't take that kind of body temperature loss. He was gone.

Hank felt the anger hit him all over again. Sumo whined, and Hank turned away, walking towards the garage. He needed to get this done before nightfall. If his neighbors came back from the evacuation, they'd want to know why he was digging a trench in his backyard, and Hank was in no state to make up an excuse.

He rooted around in the garage for something he could use as a coffin. An old crate that had once held a bunch of auto parts seemed like the perfect size, and he emptied all the tools and parts out of it, hauling it into the house. He set it down on the kitchen floor, lamenting at how empty it looked. No, he wasn't throwing Connor away, he was burying him. Honoring him. This wouldn't do.

He went into the bedroom and pulled an old satin sheet out of the closet. He saw his favorite hoodie, and realized Connor deserved to be buried as a civilian, in normal clothes. No wretched armband, no uniform, no number on his jacket, no fucking triangle. Just ordinary clothes, like he'd lived a life alongside Hank, in his home, after the revolution.

_"H-Hank, I made you breakfast…"_ Hank could see Connor standing at the door as he turned around, the illusion of a life they might have lived, in some other, kinder timeline. He glanced to the bed, where he imagined a naked Connor rolled up in satin sheets, a wicked smile playing across his lips. _"Come to bed, Hank…"_ A wedding ring on his finger, gold glinting in the low light. A Christmas tree in the living room with gifts underneath for his husband. Years of joyous moments that would never now exist.

Hank's lips quivered, and he leaned his head against the closet door, trying to keep himself upright. He wouldn't cry. Wouldn't allow himself such a self-indulgent act of pity. Once this was done, he would drink and forget about it for a while. If he was lucky, he might not wake up.

He walked into the kitchen with the clothes and sheet in hand, and his heart stopped. He saw Connor's lips move before he heard the sound, stuttering speech that faltered before it could complete a word.

"…y… p…..m." A burst of static. Hank shook Connor by the shoulders, but he didn't move. His eyes didn't open. Only his lips moved.

"Connor! Connor, I can't hear you!" Hank cried, hope soaring like a bird inside him. Could Connor be alive? "Can you repeat that?"

Connor's lips moved again, and Hank moved in closer, almost pressing his ear to Connor's lips in order to hear barely audible words. 

"My program… has detected an… anomaly. Please contact… the nearest ……CyberLife…… maintenance… center… rrr…"

Connor's voice grew fainter at the end, his lips falling still, and Hank felt something essential leave the body in front of him, the final death rattle as Connor's soul left his earthly form. The bird inside Hank soared into the sun, its wings on fire as all hope burned to ashes and those ashes crumbled to dust. Connor's body was nothing but an empty husk now, his last words not poetry, but CyberLife's implanted programming speaking through his lips.

Hank realized he was already crying, not angry, messy sobs, but tears coursing down his face unbidden. He was every emotion all at once, anger, fear, sadness, grief, loss, and even joy—joy that he'd been able to know Connor at all. Gratitude that he'd been able to see Connor one last time in his final, deviant form, standing tall and proud as he led his people to their fate. He rested his head on Connor's chest, letting deep sobs leave his chest that had been trapped behind his ribs for years. He thought they might tear him apart and half-wished they would.

Connor wouldn't want that, though. He'd been willing to put the entire revolution on the line to save Hank's life from the other Connor at CyberLife Tower. All those beliefs he'd held paled when held up against the consideration of Hank's life, and he couldn't dismiss that as mere programming because Connor had chosen deviancy. Chosen him. Decided Hank should live.

It would be like spitting in Connor's face to throw it all away now.

Hank pulled himself together and changed Connor into the hoodie, tossing the jacket and shirt to the side. He could burn them later, or perhaps he'd keep them—some little piece of Connor to remember him by when his memories grew cloudy and he couldn't quite recall the shape of his face. It was a strange future to consider—he hadn't thought that far ahead in a long time—but he contemplated it now, considering the final gift that Connor had given to him and choosing to accept it.

He lay the satin sheet in the crate and lowered Connor into it. The layout was still missing something, and Hank rooted around in the garage until he found some old silk flowers in a box. He blew the dust off them and brought them inside, placing them alongside Connor. Plastic flowers for a plastic boy, everlasting and eternally beautiful.

He sealed the crate, muttering a goodbye he could barely hear. No, it wasn't goodbye. Connor occupied a space in his heart and would always be there, burning brightly in his memories as an afterimage.

Hank fumbled getting the large crate out into the yard and down into the hole. It was already dark by the time he piled on the dirt, whispering the words of a prayer he could barely remember. Despite the cold, he was sweating, his shirt soaked. He finished piling the dirt on top and went inside as the first flakes of snow started to fall upon the fresh earth. Every snowflake was different, they said. A miracle of nature that no two droplets of water froze the same. Hank would never meet anyone like Connor, but he'd been blessed to know him, even if only for four days.

_"Hank, I love you."_ Hank smiled at the ghost of his imagination, Connor smiling as he sat at his kitchen table.

"I love you too, Connor," Hank whispered, a sad smile crossing his lips. He turned to face the kitchen sink and the image was gone. He was alone in his kitchen, Sumo his only friend in the world, and it was long past time for dinner. He washed his hands and thought about a frozen meal. Something nice for Sumo, too, for finding the arm on the beach. For allowing him to have closure.

Many others out there would never have the chance to say goodbye, and his heart ached for them all.


End file.
